A five-year-old girl stung by a scorpion waited an hour for emergency treatment until medics confessed they had run out of the serum that would have saved her.
Victim Jamily Vitoria Duarte had been rushed to the Vila Cristina medical centre in Piracicaba, in the Brazilian state of Sao Paulo, by her mother after she found her screaming in agony.
Jamily had been stung by a yellow scorpion, the most deadly bug in South America.
But when mum Patricia das Gracas Adriana Duarte rushed her to hospital she was kept waiting for 60 minutes in the emergency room on Friday, 11th August
Then after medics admitted they did not have the right serum to treat her Jamily was rushed to a second hospital.
She died just hours later even though she had been given the serum, according to local media.
Her heartbroken mum says by the time they reached the second hospital Jamily was already desperately ill.
Her heartbroken mother said: “When she arrived at Santa Casa, it was difficult to find her vein.
“And she got worse. At around 2 am, she got worse still, she started to go into cardiac arrest, and she died around 8 am.”
Local media asked city hall officials about the lack of serum at the first clinic but did not get a reply.
But the Secretary of State for Health then claimed that there was serum at the first facility and has called for an investigation.
Her mother said: “She arrived screaming, desperate. Everyone was paralysed. She said it was a [scorpion] sting, but they took my data calmly.
“If they had said right away that they didn’t have the serum, I would have gone to the Santa Casa hospital with my daughter.”
The investigation is ongoing.
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Story By: Joseph Golder, Sub-Editor: Marija Stojkoska, Agency: Newsflash
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